I presume there will be 3 Japanese Ladies and 3 Japanese Men. I've seen quite a bit of the US Ladies. I was hoping for Bebe, Katy and Alyssa whom I don't see that much of. The !apanese Ladies will be more interesting to watch, imo.

If Scott Smith doesn't fold, he will be an eye opener. He's right up there with Lysacek and Weir. The Japanese Men, I hope will be Takaheshi and Oda and another upcoming star.

then the US. v. Canadians which could be a tight race if we knew who the Canadians are.

All this, and the Synchronized Champs from Miami.

The format is a welcome change and good luck to get all this in LIVE in two hours.

Two hours should work -- only US vs. Japan will be shown live. Each skater will do a long or a short program. Two flights of six, with judging, even with a zamboni break in the middle -- hopefully to show at least one dance and one pair, with highlights of the rest -- should fit easily in two hours.

When Scott Smith lands all his jumps, he is an OK skater, but he has no special flair or personality. Scott just isn't anywhere near on the same level as Weir and Lysacek; compared to them, he is Bland and Boring. I don't see him beating either Oda or Takahashi, both of whom bring that extra spark to their performances.

Lambiel always beats Weir and Lysacek by doing quads so Scott Smith can do the same thing if he lands his quads. Oda also does not have a quad. Takahashi occasionaly tries one but not always. So he can beat all 4 of them if he does his quads, the same way Lambiel does by landing his quads, and Joubert does when he does not fall on half of his jumps.

Lambiel always beats Weir and Lysacek by doing quads so Scott Smith can do the same thing if he lands his quads. Oda also does not have a quad. Takahashi occasionaly tries one but not always. So he can beat all 4 of them if he does his quads, the same way Lambiel does by landing his quads, and Joubert does when he does not fall on half of his jumps.

Smith has just one quad---the 4S. He did a quad combo in the SP and a solo quad in the FS at US Nationals, and he still didn't come anywhere near beating Lysacek, Savoie and Weir. The reason? Smith lands the jumps, but not always cleanly; his non-jump elements are nothing special; and his expressionless skating gets badly dinged in the PCS scores. Smith finished 10 points behind the top 3 on the PCS in the FS, and he got mostly 0s on the GOE for non-jump elements.

Smith doesn't have Lambiel's spins or Joubert's joie de vivre, so you can't say Smith will win if he 'just land his jumps'. Lambiel and Joubert, if nothing else, have personality on the ice, while Smith is a skating nebbish. Smith could be most accurately compared to Chengjiang Li, who lands his jumps but has never had a podium placement.

At 24, Smith has already developed whatever personality he is going to have. We won't see any major improvement on that score.

At first glance I thought Temperboy's post was so absurd as not to invite comment at all. To say that Scott Smith can beat Weir and Lysacek because Lambiel can -- that logic seemed a little strained to me, LOL.

But I just looked at the numbers from U.S. Nationals, as mentioned by Chuckm, and sure enough, Smith beat both Lysacek and Weir in TES, thanks to his lone quad Sal that he stumbled out of, receiving -1.86 GOE. Quads rule! In fact, he beat Weir by more than 9 points.

True, he lacks Johnny's grace and Evan's showmanship, but anything can happen.

Scott beat Weir only in TES in the FS. Because Weir had a 10-point edge in PCS, Weir finished ahead of Scott. And if you recall, Weir lost megapoints in his FS because he left out jumping passes. If Weir had simply skated his quadless program the way it was supposed to be skated, he would have beaten Smith by a mile.

Theoretically, Smith COULD beat Weir and Lysacek, if they both had multiple very serious mistakes and Smith skated completely cleanly. It's just that such a scenario is extremely unlikely to happen.

If Sasha is participating just to drum up publicity, they should try to get Fumie and bill it as a grudge match. Fumie singlehandedly kept Sasha off podium at both the 2002 and 2003 World Championships. Sasha got her revenge at the Olympics, kicking Fumie off the medals stand. Cat fight! Cat fight!

If Sasha is participating just to drum up publicity, they should try to get Fumie and bill it as a grudge match. Fumie singlehandedly kept Sasha off podium at both the 2002 and 2003 World Championships. Sasha got her revenge at the Olympics, kicking Fumie off the medals stand. Cat fight! Cat fight!

re

Originally Posted by Mathman

OK, one more thing.

If Sasha is participating just to drum up publicity, they should try to get Fumie and bill it as a grudge match. Fumie singlehandedly kept Sasha off podium at both the 2002 and 2003 World Championships. Sasha got her revenge at the Olympics, kicking Fumie off the medals stand. Cat fight! Cat fight!

Don't forget about how Sasha kept Fumie off the podium at 2004 + 2005 Worlds. These two ladies have had a long rivalry!

I think the difference in prize money ($20,000 per skater for the winning team, $10,000 per skater for second, in singles) should be enough for the performers to take the contest seriously.

In pairs/ice dancing, the first place team will win $40,000 ($10,000 per team) and the second place team wins $20,000.

I think more money should be given to the pairs/dance teams; each pairing in the second place team gets only $5,000, which they then have to split between them! (Not to diss on Canada, but is that why our northern friend was chosen as opposed to Pairs -US vs. China, and Dance-US vs. Russia?)

Is the Fumie-Sasha rivalry a real one though? At the Olympics Sasha had two big falls and still won the silver, while Fumie skated almost perfect and was far from winning a medal. That seems like a joke of a rivalry.

Smith has just one quad---the 4S. He did a quad combo in the SP and a solo quad in the FS at US Nationals, and he still didn't come anywhere near beating Lysacek, Savoie and Weir. The reason? Smith lands the jumps, but not always cleanly; his non-jump elements are nothing special; and his expressionless skating gets badly dinged in the PCS scores. Smith finished 10 points behind the top 3 on the PCS in the FS, and he got mostly 0s on the GOE for non-jump elements.

Smith doesn't have Lambiel's spins or Joubert's joie de vivre, so you can't say Smith will win if he 'just land his jumps'. Lambiel and Joubert, if nothing else, have personality on the ice, while Smith is a skating nebbish. Smith could be most accurately compared to Chengjiang Li, who lands his jumps but has never had a podium placement.

At 24, Smith has already developed whatever personality he is going to have. We won't see any major improvement on that score.

While alot of what you say makes sense here is how I see it. The skaters with quads like Plushenko, Lambiel, Joubert, and even Sandhu will always beat the skaters without quads like Oda, Lysacek, Butle, and Weir if they all skate clean. The scores all seem to indicate that would be true, the top skaters without quads need the top skaters with quads to make big mistakes or do an overall real sloppy program, and then to either skate clean or make far less mistakes to have a chance to beat them in the scores.

That is why I was saying Scott Smith could beat the 4 skaters you mentioned with a quad, since they often dont even try one. The example of the skaters I listed above.